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Absolutely nothing is happening in the wide w...
May 15, 2000 by Adam in Adam's Games
Absolutely nothing is happening in the wide world of gaming. I picked up a couple games - Unreal Tournament and Draken. With the two computers, the multiplayer aspects of both are pretty fun. I had a great time playing against & with my nephew Josh. He's only 10 but he can hold his on.
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As I type, I'm sitting in front of my new com...
May 14, 2000 by Adam in Family
As I type, I'm sitting in front of my new computer. It's taken awhile to get things transferred over and ready to go. If you're interested in the details, check out my projects page.
Today is mother's day. I put together a little video for Jamie of Sam's first year and a half. My camcorder came and I'm actually doing some digital editing. It's tricky and I can definately tell I'm pushing the limits of my computer, but the quality is great. I taught Sam to say "Happy Mother's Day!" His verbal skills are pretty amazing. He's putting together multiple-word sentences, as well as using things like "and", "my", and plurals. What a super genius boy.
I think Sam and I will head out to the mall to pick up a present for Jamie this afternoon. We're all getting over being sick, so I'm trying to take it easy. Work is getting exciting - big projects are in the work. Life at home is good. I think Jamie and I are getting the hang of raising a kid. Maybe in a couple more years we'll start thinking about another.
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Well, I passed another nerd milestone - assem...
May 14, 2000 by Adam in Adam's Projects
Well, I passed another nerd milestone - assembling my computer from pieces and then overclocking it. What's overclocking, you ask? Well, it's kind of the nerd equivalent of muscle cars. Let's proceed with the story . . .
I bought a system that had a Pentium III 550E processor and got it up and running. Surprisingly, all went well. Although overclocking is pretty easy to do with my motherboard, I wanted to hold off until I got proper cooling for my CPU. I ordered a Vantec CPU cooler and finally it arrived.
Putting the CPU cooler on was the hardest part of the entire experience. I pulled the processor out of the case, then removed the wimpy Intel fan. Taking pliers and a heavy screwdriver, I tore the plastic and metal surrounding the juicy high-tech insides. The sounds of crunching were a bit unnerving, and I kept thinking how I was invalidating the warranty in a big way. With the last of the CPU case removed, I slapped on the Vantec double-fan black matte cooler. Threw it back into the case, hooked up the fan monitor, and turned it on. Checked the CPU temperature and it was running nicely around 27 degrees Celsius, a few degrees better than normal.
Next step, overclocking. Shut down and booted into the BIOS. I took a leap from the 100 Mhz frontside bus speed up to 133 Mhz. Rebooted - no problems. My 550E was running at 733 rock solid. I kept increasing the FSB speed over and over until I finally pushed it beyond what God and man had intended. The end result? My $200 550E was running at 825 Mhz - a processor which cost around $700.
All-in-all, it was a pretty exciting experience. Not only did I save a bundle in processor costs, but I had a great time doing it myself. Sure, I have a couple quirky things like the network card doesn't work in my new system, but they're pretty minor. Plus, going from my old 300 Mhz processor to this one is an amazing improvement.
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Sam's sitting on my lap as I type
May 14, 2000 by Adam in Sam
Sam's sitting on my lap as I type. He just woke up from his nap. He passed another critical milestone today - he can use the computer's mouse! We had a great time this morning feeding Elmo cupcakes and putting weird eyeballs on a face. I'm referring to Sam's Elmo game, of course.
His development goes well. He's got lots of teeth now. He's speaking sentences and bossing us around ("sit down", "daddo slide", "throw it"). He's also getting better with his physical coordination. With some help, he can assemble his train tracks. He also loves to play catch, though he's much better at throwing than catching. Sam definately loves the outside, and you practically have to drag him in if it's nice out.
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My adventures in overclocking are detailed on...
May 14, 2000 by Adam in Adam
My adventures in overclocking are detailed on my project page. Quite a fun read.
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